— Calling a rush of statewide gun buyback programs a "valuable part of a broader anti-gun-violence strategy," New Jersey Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa defended the initiative from criticism during a legislative hearing yesterday, according to a report by the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Spurred on by the massacre of more than 20 students in Newton, Conn. late last year, state-sponsored buyback initiatives across the state have netted more than 10,000 firearms since last December, according to the report. Chiesa said 1,200 of those guns were illegal, the report said.

"We've heard the comments of some who insist that gun buybacks are little more than a feel-good program," Chiesa said, according to the report. "We strongly disagree. We've never suggested that buybacks are a single, stand-alone answer to society's complex gun-violence problem."

Opponents of the program have said residents usually surrender decades-old war rifles and other weapons that would not be used in street violence in New Jersey, where handguns are the weapon of choice. Chiesa has dismissed that sentiment repeatedly, arguing that any unwanted weapons that can be taken out of circulation may save a life.

The state pays for most of the recovered firearms, which can go for as much as $250 each, through a forfeiture fund and assets seized from criminals. The program has spread throughout the state after a successful buyback in Camden that grew on the weekend of the Newton massacre, and a similar success in Newark earlier this year.

The state is expected to announce the results of a buyback program in Passaic County around noon today.